Toujours Pur
by wouldtheywriteasongforyou
Summary: A family of strangers isn't really a family at all, is it? / collection of dysfunctional Black moments.
1. (incredible things) andromeda

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer:**

Written for the AU Battle Competition (r2: under the sea!au ; pirate!au ; summer) ; Battleship Challenge II (tragedy)

Totally and completely inspired by The Little Mermaid, Taylor Swift's "Blank Space" (and other songs on _1989_), and Margaret Atwood's "Siren Song".

For Michy (writhenhearts) because I kind of sort of maybe owe her a birthday fic from back in August. xoxo

18 February 2015. Word Count: 1,292

**A life for a life: they could save hers and she could save theirs.**

* * *

**Incredible Things**

[-]

She sits out on the rocks, always the largest flattest one because the sun keeps it warm for the longest, and she waits. If she is lucky, she'll be the only one out there; if she's not, she'll have to share with her sisters and their constant chatter. They watch the clear blue ocean water and mark the time with the passage of the sun overhead, singing and humming just in case they're not the only ones out there.

It's always summer on her floating island. The sun never sets and the water is crystal clear. It's a perfect place for paradise, and her sisters do not understand why Andromeda dreams of leaving it.

She tried to, once. But the island always reappeared as if it were tethered to her, always following just a little out-of-sight but never truly gone. She can only dream about what freedom feels like – the darkness of night, a land far away from the sea – and hope that one day she will be able to escape her prison of paradise.

Sometime around noon, her sisters gather up on the tallest rock. Their iridescent-scaled tails flap impatiently against Andromeda's; she, as per usual, is the last to join them on their hunt. Reluctantly, Andromeda hoists herself up onto their rock and together they all began to sing their siren song to lure in their newest prey.

The song is magic, madness, heaven, and sin, designed purely to ensnare the feeble-minded men on the ship into coming closer. Sure enough, after a few bars of the poisonously sweet melody, the shipmen are under their spell. They come closer, under the illusion that the three sirens are the key to their desires and the treasure that they seek when in reality they are nightmares dressed as daydreams. It's not long before the men jump overboard, drowning their minds with the pretty lies the girls sing to them.

After it's all done and over with, Bellatrix and Narcissa go back to sunbathing themselves on the rocks as they wait for the next ship to pass by. Andromeda, however, hates playing this love game her sisters like to indulge in. She ignores the pile of sun-bleached skulls – Bellatrix loves to show off her conquests like trophies – and dives into the water. She's had enough of the game today.

x

Of course, Andromeda finds herself back on the rocks again hours later. She is only kidding herself when she escapes her life for those few precious hours underwater; she'll always come back each time she leaves and her sisters know it. Bellatrix sneers at Andromeda and mutters cutting remarks under her breath while Narcissa smiles coldly and won't say anything. Again, they don't understand why she does not want to be like them.

Andromeda is the first one to spot the next ship. It's only an indiscernible dot on the horizon, so she does not bother drawing her sisters' attention to it in case it isn't suitable for consumption. Bella isn't one to be roused from her sunbathing unless she is sure there is a kill to be made.

High tide crashes the waves higher up on the rocks and Andromeda moves to a taller vantage point so she is not swept out with the current. The summer breeze whips her long hair out behind her – the ship would have to be blind not to see her. Slowly, it sails closer, yet Andromeda remains silent. Soon she can make out a black flag with a white skull and crossbones (Bella would love that) and only two men aboard. She wonders where the rest of the pirates are. Silently, Andromeda slips into the water and swims towards what looks like freedom.

Surfacing on the pirate ship's starboard side, Andromeda admires the wooden immenseness. It looks so different from the shipwrecks she finds under the sea after she and her sisters dispose of the men. She wonders if she could convince the pirates to take her away. A life for a life: they could save hers and she could save theirs.

A sandy-brown haired man appears on deck, a gun pointed straight at her. "Stay back," he warns.

Andromeda cocks her head. This is the first time she'll ever interact with a human who's still alive. She doesn't want to mess it up. "Nice to meet you," she responds, taking great care to make sure she doesn't sing the words. "Where you been?" Maybe he could tell her all about the incredible things beyond this dreadful island she's spent her whole life on.

"Stay back!" he says. "Or I'll shoot!"

He has to be the prettiest thing she's ever seen. One look at that face and Andromeda knows he is it for her. He's her ticket out of her life and into the magically normal one he lives. They stare at each other for a few moments, neither moving, both at a stalemate. He starts to lower the gun when footsteps on the deck alert them to someone else's presence.

The other man, long silver-blond hair flying in the wind, joins the gun-wielding one on deck. This one is dressed in incredibly fancy clothes. Andromeda knows Narcissa would be dying to see how this one ends so she could snag his designer fabric.

He eyes her, unimpressed. "I've heard the rumours," the newcomer says, upper lip curled in disgust. His cultured accent and expensive clothes seem out of place on the weather-beaten pirate ship. "I know all about you and your sisters. Murdering wenches, that's what you lot are. Put her down, Ted. You'd be doing all of us a favour by ridding the world of her sorcery."

"But Captain," the one whose name is Ted says. "I see no harm – "

"Shoot or I'll shoot her! One word out of a siren's mouth and she'll kill you. Mark my words, Ted, the world is better off without the likes of her. Don't say I didn't warn you." The captain spits at Andromeda and then leaves Ted to do the job.

The pirate frowns. Andromeda waits to see what he will do – she knows that the sound of the gun will grab her sisters' attention and end with the pirates' demise. She also knows that if she makes any sudden movement, Ted will undoubtedly shoot. He's hesitant but deliberate and obviously knows how to use a gun. So she stays.

After a moment of what was clearly an internal struggle and second-guessing, Ted sets the gun down. "I'm going to let you go," he says slowly. "Because those rumours Captain Malfoy spoke of aren't true – you talked to me and yet here I am, alive and well. There must be good inside of you."

Andromeda wonders how those rumours even came to be about because as far as she knew, she and her sisters left no survivors. But now, she's going to let two live to tell the tale. Unhurriedly, she swims to where he is and reaches up a hand. He stares at her as if she is insane. Smiling, Andromeda wiggles her fingers at him.

"Grab my hand," she says. "I promise I'm not going to pull you down into the water and drown you. I just want to shake hands to say thank you."

"Oh," Ted says. The tips of his ears burn red, belying that he did indeed think she was intending to drown him. He extends his hand and they shake. "Now go before Captain finds out that I let you live," he urges her.

But Andromeda's not done with him yet. She tugs him down a little closer and presses a stolen kiss to his cheek. "Thank you," she whisper-sings in his ear. And then she lets him go.

[-]


	2. (once upon a time) cedrella

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: **

Written for the Tien Len Competition ; fanfiction terms competition "incest" ; and more HPFC things.

For Lizzie, my pirate and better half.

20 April 2014.

**Was she wrong to believe them both?**

* * *

**Toujours Pur**

[-]

Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a great big house with a great big family and had great big dreams. She had diamonds in her eyes and galaxies woven into her midnight hair. Her mother told her that the world was hers, and her father said she was the brightest star in the sky.

(Was she wrong to believe them both?)

x

Little girls in the House of Black were to be seen and not heard, though most guests who came a-calling certainly noticed Arcturus II's second eldest daughter. She was wide-eyed and naive, a curious little thing who loved to listen to the tales of grandeur her father's friends spun at the dinner table.

"Once upon a time, there was a little girl named Cedrella," Lord Malfoy said, eyes hinting at an adventure she would soon be privy to.

"Me!" she interrupted. "That's my name!"

"Cedrella, hush darling," her mother chided, but she indulged her daughter and did not admonish her atrocious dinner manners any further. Lysandra Black dabbed at her lipstick with a cloth napkin and encouraged Lord Malfoy to continue on with his story.

"She was small and feisty, a force to be reckoned with. But that was all right, for a pirate-in-training could be nothing less than fierce and brave . . . . "

She loved the endless freedom and the reckless courage of the pirates Lord Malfoy spoke about. That night, Cedrella vowed to herself that she would become the best – or the worst, depending on if you worked for the Crown or not – in the whole entire world.

x

Over the years, it became clear to everyone that her sisters were everything her parents wanted while Cedrella was a continuous disappointment and slander to the Black family name.

"Why must you be so loud?" Callidora complained, a pale dainty hand pressed to her temple. "You know I don't like it when you and Father argue about such trivial things like the weather."

Cedrella would roll her stormy grey eyes in response. "Would you rather me run the risk of being such a bore like yourself?" she scoffed. "No, I don't think so."

Charis, the youngest of the three, would then take that moment to pipe in and side with Callidora. "Oh, but Ella, you and Father squabble over every little thing. Would it hurt to agree with him for once?"

She sighed, for it seemed that Father wasn't the only one in her family she constantly quarrelled with. "I can't promise you anything," Cedrella said slowly and a bit reluctantly. "You know how patience is not one of my virtues. But I shall try my best to have a better attitude because I love you too ever so dearly."

The sisters smiled stiffly at each other and pretended to get along for a few minutes. The facade didn't last for much more than an hour.

x

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" her mother asked one snowy winter night as the family sat together in the parlour. It was the first time in years that the five Black family members were coexisting in the same place, and Cedrella found that she considered these people surrounding her to be strangers instead of family members.

"A pirate," she answered promptly.

Her sisters shot her dirty looks and her father let out a derisive snort after he had taken a drag from his pipe.

"Be serious," Lysandra said, not even bothering to look at her daughter. "I don't have time for your foolishness anymore, Cedrella."

Cedrella wished she had more impressive things to say to her family, but even the weather seemed to disappoint them these days.

x

She was sixteen when she met him on the docks. He was a lovely lad, charming and ruggedly handsome, straight from the seas with tales of a life she could only dream about. He took her to a local pub and whispered to her about lands far, far away. She listened, starry-eyed and intrigued, and it was obvious to anyone who dared to look that she was his and he was hers.

Septimus Weasley wasn't a pirate, much to her dismay, but he might as well have been the way he managed to steal her heart. His gold hoop earring and tousled ginger hair hinted at a future Cedrella desperately wanted. He grinned up at her, his freckles flashing impishly, and she pledged her life to him, then and there.

_Blood traitor,_ the WANTED posters around town warned her about this strange and wonderful Septimus Weasley.

(She knew he had looked familiar but it was too late to reverse the marriage vows. Not that she wanted to, anyway.)

x

Once upon a time, there was a girl who lived in a beautiful house with a beautiful family and had beautiful dreams. She had diamonds splashed upon her cheeks and carried the universe on her shoulders. Her mother told her that she didn't belong in this world, and her father said that she had no place amongst the stars in the black sky. This resulted in screaming and fighting and the fragile house of cards came tumbling down, but in the end, she was scratched off the family tree and was never to be mentioned again.

(Cedrella who?)

[-]


	3. (pillow talk) narcissa

_Written for the Big/Lil Competition Round 1._

_Prompts used: Pairing: Lucius/Narcissa, Phrase: 'I don't understand,' Plot Device: a promise_

_31 August 2015._

* * *

**Pillow Talk**

[-]

Butterfly kisses on her cheeks and nose dot Narcissa's face into constellation patterns only her husband can see.

"Good morning, lovebug," Lucius says.

Narcissa arches her back and stretches in the sunshine. "Morning, darling," she yawns. When she opens her eyes, Lucius is smiling at her with a look of pure adoration illuminating him from the inside out. "What?" she laughs. Narcissa is sure she is an unappealing mix of morning breath and puffy eyes.

"I love you," he responds simply.

She crinkles her nose and playfully swats at him. "As I love you," Narcissa says. "But I look disgusting right now, so don't feed me any dragon shit about how I'm the most beautiful woman you've ever seen –"

Lucius interrupts her with a kiss. "I've seen you at your best and I've seen you at your worst and you will _always_ be the most beautiful woman in the world."

Narcissa melts. She bites her lip and swoons at his romantic streak. "Marry me."

He grabs her left hand and taps the diamond solitaire on her ring finger. "A year ago, I did." Lucius intertwines his fingers with hers and squeezes her palm gently. "Happy anniversary, Narcissa."

She snuggles into his embrace. "Thanks, love." But then suddenly, she bolts upright. "Our anniversary!"

Lucius watches her in amusement. "Let me guess, you forgot?"

"No," Narcissa says with an eye-roll. "Just because I forget birthdays and when I'm supposed to pick up your work robes from the dry cleaners doesn't mean I am going to forget our first wedding anniversary."

He smirks. "You absolutely forgot it was our anniversary."

Narcissa pouts and throws a corner of the bedspread over his face. "Did not."

"Did too," comes his muffled reply from under the blankets.

"Did not – Lucius!" she squeals. Narcissa giggles and twitches away from his tickling fingers. She lifts the white covers up to see what he is doing.

His head pokes up, with mussed blond hair and shining blue eyes. "Yes, dear?" he says cheekily somewhere around her bellybutton.

"That's my bellybutton," Narcissa tells him. "You get paper as a first wedding anniversary gift, not my bellybutton."

He kisses her tummy. "But I want your bellybutton."

"Tough," she says, eyes on the ceiling and hands threaded into his hair. Narcissa does not even know why they are even having this conversation, especially not when his tongue is doing _that_. "You can't always get what you want."

He laughs into her skin and mouths _I love you_ all over her body. When her stomach growls sometime later, Lucius summons a house elf with practiced flair.

"Dobby, fetch Mistress the you-know-what," he demands, not once taking his eyes off of Narcissa.

"The you-know-what?" Narcissa says with a coy smile and an arched eyebrow. "Darling, you know how much I abhor secrets."

"It's not a secret." He turns on his side and with a finger traces the curve of her body from collarbone down to her hip.

"Oh, like how changing the white anemones to roses wasn't a secret?"

He shakes his head. "You weren't supposed to find out about them."

"Merlin, the smell was overpowering! I was nearly gagging up at the altar!"

"Really? That wasn't in the wedding photographs," Lucius responds cheekily.

Narcissa shakes her head at her husband. "You are _so_, so bad." She knows he knows that she cannot resist an opportunity to be proven right. Narcissa clambers out of their bed and makes a beeline for the bookcase where she keeps the family photo albums. She grabs the black leather memory book and runs back to bed where she proceeds to jump on top of Lucius. "Tell me I'm right!" she shouts.

"Hey!" he exclaims at the additional weight on him. He tugs her close to his chest and rolls over. "Got you, lovebug!"

"Tell me I'm right!"

Lucius presses his forehead to hers and nuzzles their noses together. "Nope," he grins.

She pushes on his shoulder to get him off of her. Then she opens the book and rapidly flips through the pages until she comes across the one she wants. "There!" Narcissa cries out triumphantly. She points to the moving image of her and Lucius at the altar underneath a trellis trailing with white roses. "Look, I'm absolutely nauseated!"

Lucius smirks. "I thought it was because you saw Molly Weasley waddle in eight months pregnant to the wedding ceremony in that dreadful gown of hers."

Immediately, Narcissa's countenance sours. "It was a courtesy invite, Lucius. The Weasleys weren't supposed to actually come!"

"Don't act like you were all that put out by their attendance. I know you had a thing for Arthur back in your schoolgirl years."

Narcissa turns bright red. "I never!"

He chucks her underneath the chin. "Don't worry, lovebug. I'm not upset with you. It will be our little secret. Promise."

Narcissa does not respond and instead busies herself with looking through more of the album pictures. "The hedge-maze was a terrible idea, too," she comments nonchalantly, knowing full well that it was Lucius's suggestion. "All of our guests kept getting lost in it."

"That was the point, Narcissa." The couple is quiet as tension rises between them with every page turn. "Wait, wait," Lucius says and puts a hand on Narcissa's wrist to pause her actions. "Go back to that one."

"Which one? This one?"

"Yeah…"

Narcissa blinks. "I don't understand. Is that our wedding cake on the ground?"

"I believe it is."

"But how?"

Lucius leans in to study the picture better. He places a finger on the instigator. "Red hair, vacant expression… That must be one of the Weasley spawn."

"No, look! Clearly that was one of your peacocks that knocked the cake stand over."

"That is a Weasley, Narcissa." Lucius presses a thumb over a section of the photograph to block her view.

She tries to move his thumb. "Lucius! I want to see your peacock!"

"My pets are very well-trained, Narcissa. I am offended that you even dare thought to suggest –"

"Shut up, Lucius," Narcissa huffs and kisses him to make him stop mid-rant. She tosses the wedding book to the ground. In the fairytale year that she and Lucius had been married, she had forgotten that she hadn't ended up with the white dream wedding she had always wanted. "Now where is Dobby and that you-know-what you promised me?"

[-]


	4. (black holes and dark knights) narcissa

**Author's Note:  
Disclaimer: Space. The final frontier. This is not the voyage of the Starship Enterprise. This ship has never sailed (but I really kind of want it to :)  
**

Written for the 24 Hour Pairing Challenge "Barty Crouch Jr/Narcissa"; the Star Challenge "Bellatrix"; Cinema Competition "There's Something About Mary" (losing touch with someone); Star Light, Star Bright Challenge "White Dwarf" (someone's loss) ; Gemstone Competition "emerald"

Word Count: 1,364. reposted: 12.13.15

**She had a terrible habit of running away from life.**

* * *

**Black Holes and Dark Knights**

[-]

They were both legacies of too-important people. She was a self-absorbed flower amongst cold-hearted stars; he, a failed copy of an office-obsessed father. As a result, she despised being grounded and craved the air and sky. She longed for the day when her name would go up in flaming star-dusted lights and crown the heavens with a new constellation.

He demanded attention too but in less flamboyant ways: a little Dark Arts prank here, a little breaking Magical Enforcement laws there. When he was younger, it had been a harmless game of toeing the line between wrong and right. Now, however, he no longer openly idolised or feared his strict rule-abiding father. He saw the world as something to manipulate as he pleased, and oh, did Barty Crouch Junior abuse that privilege.

They knew each other's names before they had even met. He had heard of that meadow springtime flower that blossomed in happy colours. He couldn't fathom how something could be so bright and cheerfully golden all of the time. She too had heard of that Crouch boy who lived in his father's shadow and never tilted his head to face the sun. She didn't understand why he would not step out of the darkness and soak himself in the light.

But they were both Purebloods of the same generation, and with the age-old traditions set in stone, it was literally written in the stars that they would collide briefly before spinning away from each other in their separate orbits.

[-]

She had a terrible habit of running away from life. In the metaphorical sense, she would zone out whenever her parents tried to preach their high-society politics to her yet again. As a female, she had absolutely no rights and no independence which didn't quite sit well with her headstrong nature. In the literal sense, however, she did run away from the noble House of Black many times in her youth. When she reached seventeen years of age, there was nothing her parents could do to stop her from Apparating away whenever she craved ozone in her lungs and diamond dust on her tongue.

It was during one of these escapades that Narcissa found herself in Knockturn Alley breathing out secrets to the lights of the streetlamps as if they were wishing stars. Her eyes were as dark and heavy-lidded as Bella's typically were, and her pupils were wide and dilated. The rain was misting and off-setting the harsh lines of reality into a hazy softer illusion. Narcissa felt like she was dissolving into a pile of molecules that were no longer bound together by her DNA.

"_Felix felicis_ will do that to a person," a shadow said to her.

She blinked – time seemed to stand still as she did so and she was able to count every single blonde eyelash as her eyelid swept over her vision – and tried to pinpoint her guest. "Hello?" she called out uncertainly.

"You have quite a lot of darkness inside of you for someone who paints a sunny smile on her face all of the time," the shadow replied. A ghost of a breath passed over Narcissa's neck, prickling the hairs there. She tried to twirl around to see whoever was speaking to her but her feet felt like they were stuck in quicksand and time was drowning her with each passing moment.

"Who are you?"

"You know who I am."

Narcissa closed her eyes, for time had started once more but now it was in fast-forward and everything was a blur of nauseating psychedelic colours. She concentrated on the dips and swells of his voice. The cryptic vagueness and the cynical drawl . . . a carbon copy image of the Ministry official Barty Crouch popped into her mind but that wasn't the right person, Narcissa knew. Her visitor had the jaded edge of a younger soul.

"How long have you been there?" she asked softly, dreading the answer.

"Before you sipped the vial the peddler gave you," he responded. "What were you thinking, drinking an unnamed potion that a stranger had given you?"

"I wasn't thinking," she stated. "And perhaps I had wanted to take a risk and gamble my life."

He melted out of the shadows and stood in front of her close enough to touch. "You're lucky that wasn't the Draught of Living Death."

Her lips quirked upwards into a cheeky smile at his comment. "Of course I'm lucky – I just drank pure liquid luck, Bart." She peeked through her lashes at him in time to see him roll his dark eyes before glancing around in the gloom.

"Knockturn Alley isn't safe anymore, Black. You should go home."

"Oh, don't act like you care about me, Bart," she scoffed, unconsciously taking a step backwards. "It contradicts your tough-as-teflon reputation."

His jaw tightened and his arm shot out to grab her elbow and keep her in place. "How sheltered have your parents kept you?" he growled. "The Dementors will be out tonight, Black, and this is the first place they will come to. If you know what's best, you'd leave before one of them tries to Kiss you."

Narcissa hated to be told what to do (that happens when you're Bellatrix's younger sister) and despised the patronising tone Barty Crouch Junior was using with her. "My parents tell me too much," she hissed back. "They've told me all about the Dark traditions of our family and the arranged marriages and the Dark Lord. I just want to un-know all of it and forget the atrocious acts they have committed!"

"So you thought you would willingly come out here and volunteer yourself as victim to a Dementor's Kiss."

Her gaze dropped to the cobblestone ground she was standing on, and her hands reached up to fiddle with the hem of her satin black robes. "I've been told that I am to be engaged this autumn to a Death Eater," she murmured. "Lucius Malfoy."

"I see."

But Narcissa knew that Barty really didn't understand the gravity of the situation. He wasn't a Pureblood girl – there was no way he could know how marriage shackled a female to her husband and imprisoned her within an inescapable glass world of wealth and loneliness.

"I wish it were you," she said to her childhood best friend, the _Felix felicis_ giving her the courage of a lion for a tiny second.

Barty jerked his gaze in her direction. "And what difference would that make?" he asked sharply.

_All the difference in the world_, Narcissa wanted to say but her mouth wouldn't form the words.

"Don't worry; it'll pass," Barty assured her gruffly, for she was simply going through the predictable stages a dose of _Felix felicis_ gave its user. First came the philosophical introspective stage; then the on-top-of-the-world invincible feeling where your luck was it its peak; and then the paralysis stage where the luck would ebb away from your bones and time had to intervene again so that your impracticable luckiness would mesh back in with reality. "I've got to get going, anyway. Promise me to never go near the Dementors and that you'll make it back to the House of Black before half past ten tonight? The Dementors come out at eleven."

Externally she nodded, but internally she was screaming and pleading with him to stay. She had one last thing she wanted to tell him before –

_Pop!_ And he was gone.

She let out a gasp as the world began to spin on its axis again, and reached out in vain for him even though all she touched was the hungry vortex of shadowy darkness.

"Maybe I did come out here for a kiss," she whispered. "But not from a Dementor."

[-]

That autumn, she became Mrs Lucius Malfoy. She smiled prettily and tried her hardest to be the best wife for him. The only time she betrayed her perfect Pureblood façade was when she found out that Barty Crouch Junior had been sent to Azkaban for supporting the Dark Lord.

She cried but did not visit Barty while he was there because he had made her promise once long ago to never go near the Dementors.

[-]


End file.
